In the autumn of 1990, just weeks after the German re-unificiation, a letter to the ADAC club magazine sparked a campaign to save the “Alleen” – the roads in the former GDR which are flanked on both sides by rows of trees.

The result not only protected those roads from tree-felling and overuse by heavy goods vehicles, but the network was expanded across the country, including the western part of Germany, and now stretches for 2,900km from the northern point of Rügen at Putgarten near Kap Arkona, all the way down to Lake Constance on the Swiss border.

The road itself has signs along the route with “Deutsche Alleenstraße” in white text on a brown background, and free PDF maps can be downloaded from the alleenstrasse.com Website.

This is part of the road near Kluis on Rügen: